Regina's Blog

Today's workforce is made up of five unique generations; Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millennial) and Generation Z. According
to the Department of Labor, Millennial will be the largest generation in the workforce by 2020. Thousands of Baby Boomers are retiring every day. Each
generation has their preferred way of communicating, their own values, and their own rules for what is appropriate behavior at work. Traditionalists
and Baby Boomers are very comfortable with chain of command thinking at work, Millennial not so much. Last week during a management training
program, a manager shared with me that one of his employees texted him to ask for a raise. Can you even imagine sending a text to your boss to ask
for a raise? That sounded so strange to me, but I am a Baby Boomer, not a Millennial. Baby Boomers prefer face to face communication. I would have
walked into to my bosses office and asked for a raise. Millennials prefer electronic communication.

In today’s global business environment, sharing information with remote audiences via web conferencing and webinars has quickly replaced face to face
meetings and live training. Web conferencing is convenient and cost effective for global organizations. There are a variety of vendors that offer
web conferencing and webinars at a variety of price points. I use Citrix Go to Webinars to deliver webinars; it is user friendly
and affordable. Some of my clients use WebEx, Adobe Connect and Microsoft Office Live Meeting for their conferencing
needs. WebEx is the most senior Web conferencing provider on the market today. Whoever you chose to work with, make sure that
they offer technical assistance.

Delivering information via web conferencing and webinars can be challenging, especially in the beginning. First, how do we know people are really listening
if we can’t see them? Even if we can see them via a webcam, we still don’t know if they are actively listening. Another challenge is that most
audiences are culturally diverse and usually in different time zones.Most of the clients that I work with have struggled with effectively communicating
during web conferencing. They know that they must use web conferencing but they don’t know how to engage the remote listeners.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to deliver a Train the Trainer program for Duke Energy. During the program I asked if anyone used a SPACER to kick
off their training. To my surprise, this group of technical trainers had never heard of a SPACER before. Here are the basics.

In today’s global business environment, sharing information with remote audiences via web conferencing and webinars has quickly replaced face to face meetings and live training. Web conferencing is convenient and cost effective for global organizations. There are a variety of vendors that offer web conferencing and webinars at a variety of price points. I use Citrix Go to Webinars to deliver webinars; it is user friendly and affordable. Some of my clients use WebEx, Adobe Connect and Microsoft Office Live Meeting for their conferencing needs. WebEx is the most senior Web conferencing provider on the market today. Whoever you chose to work with, make sure that they offer technical assistance.